Tangled comes with caveats, especially for readers of this newspaper. Not only is it a Disney cartoon aimed at kids, but it’s also being shown in Cyprus cinemas dubbed into Greek. The dubbing is a nuisance, even for those who speak the language; I wasn’t even planning to review the film for that reason, but ran out of options (the only other choice was My Soul to Take, which sports some truly bizarre touches but only in the service of a tired slasher plot). It’s not badly dubbed. The voice-over actors don’t grate, and even the songs retain some modicum of wit in translation – but the dubbed voices alienate, just because it feels weird hearing Greek rhythms matched to recognisably American characters (maybe I’m just not used to it). The kids’-cartoon caveat, on the other hand, is increasingly becoming a non-issue.
Simply put, kids’ cartoons are taking over Hollywood – commercially, and even artistically. Last week there were four cartoons showing on the five (or sometimes six) screens of the K-Cineplex. At the other end of the spectrum, highbrow French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma named two cartoons on its Top 10 of 2010, a terrain usually reserved for abstruse Taiwanese dramas. Right now, some of Hollywood’s richest characters and most emotional moments are being drawn on computers rather than acted by flesh-and-blood people.
In fact, children’s cartoons may be about to outpace children, at least very young children. My niece (aged 4) actively disliked Toy Story 3 – the most acclaimed animated drama of the past few years – almost certainly because of its slippery emotional trajectory: first the toys are forced out of their home, then they’re welcomed by friendly-looking strangers (Lots-o-huggin Bear and his minions), then the strangers turn out to be evil. It’s a lot of trauma and betrayal for a small child to process. A friend’s daughter, also aged 4, fled Shrek Forever After in the first 10 minutes, deeply upset by the montage showing how Shrek’s life becomes a misery after having children. A child is bound to take that kind of thing personally.
Tangled mines the same territory as the Shrek films – it’s a fairytale, the story of long-haired Rapunzel, spiced with a handsome, Aladdin-like thief and controlling mother – and may be more traditional, insofar as it doesn’t spoof the fairytale elements with heavy irony. Yet in fact this Disney trifle (the 50th feature-length cartoon in the company’s history) goes even further than Toy Story 3 in its … um, tangled emotions. Rapunzel is a prisoner but doesn’t know it, her ‘mother’ – actually an old hag who kidnapped her when she was a baby – telling her she’s being kept in the tower for her own good (the world outside is full of nasty people). Mother keeps Rapunzel close with sickly, manipulative love; “Mother knows best,” she sings – she’s apparently based on Joan ‘Mommie Dearest’ Crawford – abusing her power over the poor girl. The relationship is almost identical to the parent-child dynamic in the Greek black comedy Dogtooth – but Dogtooth was labelled shocking and controversial, whereas Tangled is considered appropriate for kids still in nursery school. Unbelievable.
Parents with young kids should beware, in my opinion. It’ll take a pretty jaded 5-year-old not to flinch at the proposition that a mum – even a surrogate mum – who professes boundless love for her daughter is in fact a monster who wishes her ill. The climax is also incredibly intense (for a cartoon), with Flynn – the handsome thief – bleeding to death and Rapunzel willing to accept eternal servitude for a chance to save him. In between you get the usual PC messages, of course – Rapunzel is a ‘strong heroine’, to the extent that you start to wonder why she stayed in that tower all those years – but no amount of positive reinforcement can defuse the creepy feel of those mother-daughter scenes.
Am I harping too much on one thing? Maybe. It should be said that Tangled is mostly terrific. The plot’s a bit predictable – couple meet, fall in love, separate, reunite – and the whole Girl Power angle is so 90s, but much of the film is delightful. The storybook look is gorgeous, the faces expressive (Rapunzel prone to wild excitement and Barbie moments), the songs rousing and the comic-relief supporting characters tremendous. There’s a chameleon named Pascal – Flynn keeps calling him a frog, maybe in reference to Disney’s previous hit The Princess and the Frog – who steals scenes by doing almost nothing, and a horse named Maximus who’s like no other horse in movie history, a fierce-looking lawman (lawhorse?) with the nose of a bloodhound.
Tangled is amusing. Tangled is charming (which Shrek never was, at least for me). Ye
